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Soon you will be able to spend crypto money easily at shops that do not necessarily accept crypto-currency with the help of a special new bank card.

Coinbase, the main exchange of popular crypto coins such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum, joins forces with Visa for the creation of a new bank card. The Coinbase card bridges the gap between crypto money in a Coinbase account and a merchant. When used, the merchant in question is immediately paid out money, but that money is converted from a crypto wallet of his choice.

The card comes with an application that lets you choose with which crypto money you want to pay. You’ll also see your transaction history right away. With this offer, Coinbase hopes to give cryptocurrency as money a boost. The card is the first of its kind. There were already systems with similar functionality, but you had to load money onto those cards first. This card would therefore work much more seamlessly. The Coinbase card is initially rolled out in the UK, and later comes to other European countries. There is no mention of a roll-out outside Europe.

Hype

The question is to what extent convenience is the most important inhibiting factor on cryptocurrency as a means of payment. Digital coins have a traditionally volatile exchange rate. If you buy a bread with Bitcoin, and the price suddenly rises considerably, then by the end of the working day you may have paid twice as much for that bread in essence. During the hype crypto money was mainly bought as a scarce commodity with speculative value, analogous to gold.

In the meantime the hype has subsided somewhat. A recent mysterious purchase of Bitcoin has once again sparked enthusiasm, but the price increase does not seem to be based on reality. In addition, coins such as Bitcoin have some inherent restrictions that prevent large-scale adoption. Perhaps the greatest is the transaction speed, which is linked to an enormous calculating capacity (miners), consumes a lot of power, and can never reach the smoothness of, for example, a real fish card.

Related: Canadian crypto exchange loses 166 million euros

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.